I know this is mainly a photography forum, but I thought I would find some help here.

I am trying to shoot some video for a personal project with the Nex-7. I have a European version of the camera , so my camera does 50p/50i.

When trying to record HD there is a plethora of settings that I am trying to understand. First there is the choice of MP4 or AVCHD. I don´t really understand the difference (else that my Mac won´t read/edit the AVCHD files unless I convert them).

Should I decide to shoot in AVCHD, then the number of options (for a video ignorant as myself) is a bit overwhelming. I don´t even really know what is the difference between 25/50i & 25/50p. Then there is a large number of options for both 50i and 50p (where the difference seems to be the file size or bit rate).

I am lost. Something inside me says, "shoot the highest setting (50p 28M - PS) and then worry about converting after", but this may very well be a wrong approach..

I want to edit this film in BW, so I wonder if I should shoot in BW directly from the camera or shoot color and convert in editing.

Also, I want to shoot a part of the project in a way that I can slow down the action (semi slow-mo) and, the rest, I just want Full-HD quality to be edited in my Mac (iMovie or FCP).